


Depth Change

by Turtle_ier



Series: Turtle's MCYT AUs [21]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Attempt at Humor, Developing Relationship, Drama, Flowers, Fluff and Angst, Getting to Know Each Other, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Phobias, Rating May Change, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Strangers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 15:20:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29984841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtle_ier/pseuds/Turtle_ier
Summary: In the (sort of) near future, Earth has been flooded and the remaining human population is still learning how to get over it. They don't trust their new neighbours, they don't like the changed environment, and they certainly don't want help dealing with it.Aside from one weird human, that is.Besides,  it's not like it's Dream’s fault. He quite likes the water, personally.
Relationships: Clay | Dream/Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF)
Series: Turtle's MCYT AUs [21]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875367
Comments: 5
Kudos: 41





	Depth Change

Everyone knew the story by now.

Everyone  _ had _ to know the story by now since it had been told since he was a tadpole, since his parents had given birth to him and shipped him off, kicking and screaming, to get an education. It was mentioned in history, English, Aasarn, even mathematics and the sciences were not safe. The only place where it was never really lectured to him was during lunch, and even then, it was talked about by the human kids plenty enough. 

The fact that Dream had failed all of his classes aside from engineering was irrelevant, and he’d be quick to tell anyone that asked that he’d only failed P.E. because he didn't show up,  _ thank you very much _ .

What mattered now, he brought his thoughts back on track, was finding George, and Shale along with him, in this urban jungle of an underwater bunker. 

Everyone knew the story by now, which only half-included Dream since he could just about find his way out of a room if the door was open. The story didn't matter to him right now anyway, since he was just wishing the humans had learnt how to do underwater architecture before the world flooded. That would have been nice, but at this point it was wishful thinking. 

He slicked his hair back (in reality it wasn't hair, but it looked a lot like it), shaking off the excess slime that stuck to it whenever he was out of the water and he blinked up at the green sign pointing towards the exit, then the one next to it which was, for some reason, written in black in white plastic. Didn't humans know that Newtat had better dark vision than light vision? Obviously not. 

He pulled out his slate and pressed his fingers to the corners to open it, which expanded to fit in his hand instead of remaining as a small square like when it was off, and he looked through his messages. Nothing new, aside from a photo from George of Shale and him inside a… what was that, a laboratory? Yes, a lab. A laboratory.

A human brushed passed him, and Dream stepped out of the dry walkway and down into the steps, which descended into a canal which was around three metres wide, but after looking further down the canal, noting the lack of sampans, he returned to his slate and glanced through it again. His trousers were already wet from being outside – he didn't care if his ankles got wet further, but he  _ did  _ care about being run over by a boat. 

In the image, Shale’s muted gold and green-tipped scales were reflected into the camera, looking like a bronze statue with jade edging. The species – and Dream was  _ really _ wishing he’d paid more attention in biology – was apparently fairly valuable in other, unflooded countries, and in underwater colonies like this one elsewhere, but Dream knew where they lived. The big house at the top of Fort Canning, which had half of its bottom floor flooded, housed at least a hundred of the pangolin-like bats, and they made a show of screeching about it. Shale happened to be mute, which was partly why Dream looked after it in the first place. 

Another human walked past, and Dream put his hand out to him to catch his attention.

“Excuse me,” he said in English, “Do you know where the laboratories are?”

“Sorry?” he said.

“La-bor-a-tor-ies,” Dream said slowly, mouthing it to get around his accent, “do you know where?”

“Down two floors,” the man said, before walking quickly away. 

Now that was the next question – how could he get down two floors?

He was only on the third at the minute, with floor zero being the only one with access to the surface of the Strait, and floors one and two being used for agriculture. Three was the first one to have actual, human ‘human’ stuff, like food courts and houses and offices and whatnot, along with the canals to transport goods on boats, but the white-washed steel along the walkways and the boring, white signs made everything look the same. He’d been inside before, usually only going to his room and to get his rations before making his way to the exit, but George knew the place better. George knew the elevators that went down further than floor three.

He paused to shoot George a message –  _ floor five? –  _ before continuing on down the canal, keeping his feet in the water and looking around for any sign of an elevator or a staircase. 

Considering how few people there were walking about, Dream had expected it to be silent, but the oppressive sounds of the ocean, without the soundproofing reserved for the wards and the bedrooms, sounded almost like whales in the near distance. It wasn't unheard of to see them in the Strait, but given the nature of the leaning, almost cliff-side building meant that the whales didn't usually see them or get close enough to be seen in return. Dream had seen the outside of the base many times, almost every day, but he’d yet to see a whale. 

His slate buzzed again. George confirmed;  _ floor five _ . So down two. Great.

Dream continued walking in the canal, taking another step down into the water so that it was up to his knees instead of just up to his ankle, and he ignored the weird look a stray Gilli gave him, with her face full of feathers making her seem far more expensive than she perhaps was. Newtats like him were not uncommon, but certainly not as common as humans. She just needed to get out more. 

Dream stuffed his hands into his pockets, adjusting them so that the webbing between his fingers didn't get caught on the fabric, and he looked left and right as he waded through the water. 

The arched roof of the hallway meant that sound travelled further than it should, and given the lack of insulation, Dream could hear faint sounds of the bunker coming from almost every direction, only interrupted by the sounds of the canal or the ocean outside. He walked past another hallway, sinking chest-deep into the water before moving to the other side, and he glanced at every door he passed. They lead into quarters, labelled with human-letters and their Aasarn counterparts, until at the very end they’d run out of letters and change first into Mandarin and Aasarn, then to Mandarin and Hoolin. Dream didn't speak Hoolin or Mandarin, at least not much, but he recognised the language well enough. He could just about say ‘hello’ and ‘my favourite food is grapes’, and read the numbers written on a slate, but not a lot else stood out. 

One of the lights flickered overhead, and he almost didn't catch sight of another human, one carrying a plastic tub with some small plant fronds coming out of the top. Dream held out his hand again to get his attention.

“Excuse me,” he said again with the accent the past human understood, and the guy looked up, “I need to get to the la-bor-a-tor-ies. Do you know how?”

“Why are you saying it like that?” the guy asked instead.

Okay. Rude. It seemed he needed to use a different accent then.

“Another human didn't understand me,” Dream said, using his normal voice since he’d tried being nice, “do you know how to get here?”

Dream pulled out his slate to show the guy the photograph of George and Shale, but more specifically the background. He watched as the guy’s eyebrows squinted at the poor-quality photograph (George’s slate was old, but since it still worked the quartermaster refused to give him a new one, and he’d neglected Dream’s advice to drop it in the piranha enclosure on level six).

The guy’s voice, something about it, seemed familiar. It was almost like his accent in English was almost the exact same, or at least was mostly similar. Dream’s still had the robust sounding hard ‘T’s and ‘R’s that were common in the Aasarn dialect, but the overall effect was unnoticeable.

“That’s floor five,” the man said.

Before Dream could say anything along the lines of ‘I know’ or ‘tell me how to get there, I swear to the leviathan', the guy continued without prompting.

“I’m going there now. Your friend seems to be in the creature bay, which is opposite where I’m dropping this,” he pulled the plants up slightly, “off. Do you want to just follow me, or…?”

“I’ll follow you,” Dream said immediately, “I’m not familiar with this floor.”

Dream turned around to follow the man back the way he had just come, his legs still wading through the canal, but the man didn't comment. Something about this human seemed different to some of the others, be it the fact that he was carrying plants, or that he didn't seem phased by Dream being in the canal, or that he was walking with a world-heavy arch in his spine. He couldn't tell. He just looked back to where he was walking, with the lightweight, textured and rigid plastic making up the floor beneath the water, and glanced at the walls. 

Even if he was a Newtat, Dream kept an eye out for any windows. It wasn't the water that worried him (it would be silly if it did), but given they were on the third floor and far further out than most of the bedrooms, he was more than aware of the likelihood of a sheer drop into the deep ocean outside. The deep,  _ cold  _ ocean outside.

“You’re a Newtat, right?” the guy asked.

“Yeah.”

“I expected you to be taller.”

Dream snorted, and without a word he took the two steps up onto the walkway the human was standing on. There was easily five or six inches between them, and the human took a step back in something a bit like shock, rustling his plants.

“Oh shit,” he said, “Never mind. Why were you walking in the water?”

Humming, Dream went back into the canal and kept walking, with the man coming to walk beside him. It was unusual for a human to be interested rather than offended by his presence, and Dream could feel his cheeks grow darker from how pleased he was at the attention. He licked his lips absentmindedly, and even though he was fully grown, the urge to lick his eyeballs wasn't gone. He hadn't done it in at least ten or so years, but like a human picking their nose, the urge was never gone. 

“It’s faster,” Dream answered the question, “Why do you walk on land?”

‘I’m not a huge fan of wet shoes.”

“That’s fair enough. Do you go in the water a lot?”

“Only really to clean myself.”

“Not for fun?” Dream asked as they turned a corner, and he had to get out of the water to bypass the traffic system in the canal.

“Not really. There’s not a pool or anything in the gym in my quarter. Which one are you in?”

“Quarter F.”

“Oh, me too.”

“I’m surprised that I haven't seen you– Wait.”

Dream squinted at him, and while the guy seemed confused, something about him still seemed familiar. It wasn't the cotton clothes he was wearing since they were standard for anyone who had to travel between floors delivering goods, especially in the laboratories, but his hair was tied back in two buns, along with his fringe being tucked behind his ears. Why was that the thing throwing him?

“I gave you my jelly one time,” he said, prompting Dream.

“You gave me your jelly!” He exclaimed, “Oh man, how could I forget that?”

“It was a while ago,” he said, shifting, and he kept walking. 

Now that Dream was on land instead of in the canal, and even with the widened walk way, he was slower, and the guy walked a few paces ahead of him with the box in his hands. The back of his cotton tunic (it was almost like an áo dài, although it lacked the brocade and silk of a typical one) hit the back of his knees and Dream watched his black trousers move beneath it, like something he was trying to hide. The man had dark hair, which as far as Dream could tell was fairly common for the area, but his skin was paler, like milk, and he had some moles across his face. It wasn't a bad look – if anything, Dream could go so far to admit that he was fairly handsome – but something about him seemed stiff and uncomfortable. 

“Have I said something wrong?” Dream asked.

“No,” the man said, “it’s just kind of weird for you to have been that excited over jelly.”

“It had fruit in it,” Dream said.

“What's wrong with that?”

“Nothing! It’s a good thing.”

They walked in silence for a moment. 

"What kind of fruit was it?" he asked.

"Jackfruit."

"...Cool."

They walked in silence, but at one of the many doors in the hallway, the man stopped and adjusted his grip on the box of plants to open it. Dream looked over his shoulder as he went inside, and he followed when he realised it was an elevator on the side of the bunker, where there were no windows and they were half inside the earth from all of the silt which had piled up. The man pressed the button and the doors closed, leaving Dream to the silence between them and his own thoughts.

The silt was a major issue all over the island, but especially for the sea base. When it was originally built in the Singapore Strait, it was only supposed to be a decorative piece, an expansion to Marina Bay Sands. When it was purchased by the government in 2031, eyebrows raised at the decision, and arguments voiced when they elected to expand it further than the initial research base, hotel and restaurant, which had originally made up two floors. Similar things had been happening elsewhere, in places like Sydney and Venice, but most places had elected to build upwards instead, with deep foundations and entrances only accessible twelve metres in the air or by helicopter. People didn't know what to think of it at first, but by the time they heard the news it was too late.

Turns out the governments had received news of it before most of earth’s people did, and in retrospect, it was a bad move for Slle to have not broken the news publicly. 

Everyone knew the story by now.

Slle, or the ‘other world’ as some took to calling it, had mostly been under water with tall, uninterrupted cliffs which lead two-hundred or so metres in the air. The only areas which were not underwater or at an incredibly high altitude were the swamps which, it just so happened, Newtats were from and Aari occasionally visited. The Gilli had noticed it first, and had given Earth warning of a World Hole developing off the coast of Argentina years before it happened, but the military personnel they’d contacted told their superiors, who told their team leaders, who told their Captains, who told their Secretaries of State, who told their governments. 

Dream had heard an Earth song, one from a while before the world flooded which had a line which stuck with him. He’d only heard it once, only in passing as a human opened the door to their room and talked with a neighbour, but it stuck with him all the same.

_ Mother, should I trust the government? _

The answer, it had seemed, was no.

The World Hole opened, as portals tended to do, and while many people were in a good position to either be above the gradual flood or inside the water-tight structures, many were not. It was mostly the poor, which always left a sour taste in his mouth, or the otherwise unprivileged. Many who were ‘in the know’ bought their way into a comfortable living space, and many had to bid on the last seats. Now, money meant nothing.

Many areas survived, the ones on land higher than the forty metres rise in water, and the roles were reversed when the people in their bunkers and high-rises needed food. No one could grow enough of it, aside from the populations that were used to growing in harsh climates above the water. 

Everyone knew the story by now.

The rains came in much the same way as the World Hole did, thunderous and unstoppable with little land to stop them. Lagoons appeared in places where the water hadn't risen, and lakes as large as the seas appeared in the middle of continents. Cities in America, Australia, Russia, China, and Brazil, which hadn't experienced the water rising at all, were underwater overnight from flooding, which few of the countries had considered or prepared for. With the World Hole appearing to Slle, both parties went through to the other sides with questions, wanting answers.

Humans, what ones were not under water, explored the ‘new world’, while Gillis, Newtats and Aari came to Earth to see what was happening there. 

It was a little disappointing to learn that it was mostly humans. Dream could admit that whale sharks were pretty cool though. 

“Is fruit really that big a deal?’ the guy asked when the silence had lingered a little too long, “They come in all of the jelly pots. Jackfruit, mango and honeydew or whatever.”

“It’s a pretty big deal to me,” Dream said, “I mean. I grew up here so I only have what my parents told me, but fruit, apparently at least, used to just come from the trees really far up, and since it was a long drop, well…”

“It broke?”

“Like an egg,” Dream nodded.

“Newtats came from, well, mangroves right?”

“What’s a mangrove?”

“It’s,” the guy paused, “There’s a type of environment I've heard about here, we have some mangrove trees growing in the labs. It’s got long roots that twist around like a spider web, and they did that so that the tide could go in and out between their roots.”

“Maybe,” Dream said, “But it wasn't really tidal. It was more like, well, the sun came along and dried it up, and then the rains came along and made more water. Usually there were puddles and stuff around.”

“I’ve never been to Slle.”

“It’s difficult for anyone other than a researcher or politician to get through the World Hole. I heard through a Gilli I know that they’d stopped letting humans through whenever it was that they started trying to find oil.”

“Yeah I heard about that,” he said, “you guys don't have plastic, do you?”

“Not intentionally.”

The elevator came to a stop and the doors opened a moment later, with some humans waiting on the other side to come through. The sampan near the elevator entrance had cargo stacked on it, along with a pair of humans waiting to unload it, so Dream and the man stepped out of the elevator and onto the silver-accented floor of the scientific research labs. He led Dream down a canal with a railing, so that he couldn't walk in the water like he had been before, but after passing a pair of Gilli they reached two doors opposite one another. One had a large ‘4’ written above it in both English and Aasarn numerals, and smaller numbers beside it in Mandarin, Malay, Hoolin and Bea, and similarly, a large ‘5’ was on the opposite door in the same languages. 

“I think your friend is in five,” the man said, “just give it a knock and see if he’s inside. Worst comes to worst they’ll just ask you to leave.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dream said, tone teasing, “You're on your own world. Your worst is my second best.”

The man adjusted the plants, looking down at them before looking Dream in the face again.

“I’m sorry to hear it,” he said, “but if I see you again in the food court I'll give you my jelly.”

Dream pressed a hand to his collarbones, just over his heart, and he grinned.

“You’re too kind to me. You’re not bad for a human.”

The man laughed.

“Don't let the other humans hear you say that. They’ll think you’re taking over.”

“They already do.”

Dream looked away, back at the door labelled ‘5’, and he turned back to the other man to ask a question, but with his mouth open he looked at the space which had one held a human being. 

He looked down the hall, back where they had just come from, and then to the door, before Dream turned back to the fifth door with a huff. He raised his hand to knock. 

A couple of seconds later, a human woman pulled the air-locked door open and slid it to one side, her wide black curls obscuring the space immediately around her head. She didn't look pleased to see him, but then again, she seemed like the kind of person who didn't like anyone at first.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her accent thick, different from his own.

“Hi, hello. Uhm. Is George here?” he asked.

“George who?”

“George,  _ George _ ,” Dream said, sighing instead of explaining that last names were a human thing  _ only _ , and he held his hand up to his shoulder “He’s this tall, brown and white feathers, a Gilli. He’s got my pet with him, too.”

“The boggi?”

“Pangolin-bat thing,” Dream brushed his slimy ‘hair’ back again, feeling awkward.

Her mouth tilted to the side in a half-smile, before the woman pulled her wheelchair to the side and pointed over her shoulder into the back of the room.

“Don't touch anything,” she warned, “he’s near the back.”

Dream thanked her as he moved past her, and in the brightly lit and unpainted steel of the laboratory, which had a few human scientists moving around and looking through screens of data, he felt like the frog the human children used to insist that he was. It wasn't  _ his fault _ that they couldn't tell the difference between amphibians. A few of the humans glanced at him as he passed, their eyes following him across the room as they measured the heat resistance of vent-crawlers and the toxicity of lionfish, but Dream kept his eyes forward and watched the end of the room. 

George was near the back, sitting sideways on the chair as to not crumple his tail feathers, and his brown eyes slid over to Dream when he rounded the corner of his research area. Shale was on the table before him, its head pressed into George’s palm and asking to be pet.

“Hey Dream,” George greeted him in Aasarn.

Shale blinked at him, turning away from George and raising its claw tipped wings to him as its slated tail unfurled. It came forward, taking unsteady steps on its awkward back legs. Dream put his hand out, letting the bat-like creature crawl up his arm and onto his shoulder, where it draped its wings over his left shoulder and his neck, peaking over at George. It stuck its tongue out at him, like it could tell that George couldn't reciprocate. 

“Hey, sorry. I had trouble getting here,” Dream replied in the same language, “Is Shale all good?”

“As good as can be. It’s still shaken from flying into the glass but it’s not in danger of further injury because of it. Just don't let it fly for today and it’ll be all good.”

George pulled himself off the chair he’d been leaning back in, and he brushed off his trousers and his shirt. His claws caught on the fabric a little, but the Slle material was used to his rough handling, and he looked no different when he put his hands down than he had when he was sitting. The long ‘tail’ of the shirt, which went down his front and between his hips, dragged slightly on the floor until he straightened his back, too. 

“Should we get going?” he asked, looking up at Dream again, “You’re dripping on the floors.”

Dream looked down at his bare feet and then sheepishly returned it to George’s face, but the other man was smiling at him faintly at his antics. 

“Where to?” he asked. 

“Anywhere but here,” George said, “and my room is open if you want it.”

“I’ll get your sheets sticky with my slime,” Dream told him as George started to pack up his section of the lab, “You know, like last time.”

“You need to stop calling it slime,” he said, “The humans are going to make things up about us.”

“Well, what do I call it instead?” Dream ignored the latter part of George’s sentence as Shale crawled down his front and stuffed itself in his pocket, “Slime is easier.”

“Mucus is the correct term, but phlegm could work.”

Dream wrinkled his nose.

“That’s gross.”

“It’s acc-u-rate,” George sing-songed, “now come on. I’ve been saving my biscuit rations. We can share.”

“Let me get the ones I’ve been saving, too. We’ll have a meal. What’s the thing human’s call it?” he switched to English, “picnic?”

George snorted, moving back to Aasarn, “That’s a dumb word.”

“All words are dumb. Come on.”

Shale hung upside down from the hook at the top of the board as Dream moored it, and his long fingers, even with the webbing between them, made quick work of the rope tying it down to the dock. 

The dock was below the water, on the second floor of the base. While its high, ridged ceilings gave Dream a reminder of an old metal box he had seen once before, he had been told that it had originally been built for sport, and the hole cut into the floor came as a necessity when the humans realised they’d need a way of accessing the outside world using more than just the hatch above. It acted as an entrance for all underwater vehicles, including human-made submarines and Newtat-made boardivers, which usually only had two passengers at most, and had a large sailfin to aid both speed and turning in the water. 

He shook himself out, climbing onto the metal platform to grab his shirt and trousers which he had left in the lockbox, and Dream tugged them over his skin with some difficulty. Being wet and putting dry clothes on sometimes felt like wrestling an octopus – not his ideal daytime hobby, but one he had unfortunate experience with, and he unhooked Shale’s tail from the board and lowered the sailfin on the boardiver. The arched box, shaped almost like a clam to reduce drag, came off the back of his boardiver with a click and he brought it forward to the harbour master, the contents clattering inside. 

The harbour master – an Aari, or to humans he was a crustacean with a hard shell and coral-like fronds – glanced away from his record slate and put down the stylus he had been using to edit it. 

“Ah, hello Dream,” he spoke in Aasarn, “I hope you've found something interesting, even if you didn't have a supervisor today. What have you brought for me?”

“Stuff,” he said, “Many things. I found more keys, the usual.”

The harbour master gestured with one claw for Dream to produce the items, and with some effort, Dream pried open the arched box. Inside were a variety of things, which he pulled out in short order.

Two keys, an old and water-logged mobile phone, a tainted necklace, a locked locket, a scrap of plastic waste, a book with plastic pages, and a fresh flower. 

The last object the harbour master picked up with some curiosity in his claw, delicate as to not break the petals, and he glanced over at Dream as the Newtat shifted from side to side. The papery flower, or flowers seeing as there were three, were a bright pink and had white, star-like stems in the middle, with their leaves having a slight texture to them but were soft like velvet. Despite Shale being curled up and upside down in his left hand, Dream could feel her shift too under the harbour master’s gaze. 

“Curious,” the harbour master clicked through his Aasarn, “Are you aware that flowers are a sign of love between humans? Their habits are as peculiar as they are understandable since this one is quite beautiful. Where did you find this?”

“Just growing off a building near to the wheel.” 

Dream waved the hand that wasn't holding Shale, and even still it unfurled and took off, flying around the low room, skimming the water and stretching its wings.

Dream watched it move for a moment before turning back to continue his sentence, “I’m not sure what type it is, or if it’s of any importance.”

“Hmm, the wheel. No, I’m not sure if it’s important either. It may be worth bringing it to floor five to have the botanists look at it, just to make sure it isn't dangerous,” he said, pushing it back, “but for these I’ll just say thank you and take them off your hands.”

Dream nodded to the harbour master and took the flower back, it’s bright pink petals in sharp contrast to the slight green tinge of his own skin beneath the slime. He put it into the pocket on the upper part of his shirt where it was less likely to get crushed, and put his arm out for Shale to grab onto, before moving to the other side of the room to clock out. 

The walkway was quiet, as it usually was when Dream finished his shift, and although he wasn't aware of the time it was definitely still daylight outside. The only people who were deemed necessary to be awake during the daylight hours were the botanists, and even then it was only the ones associated with food growth on the first floor. The second floor was also for agriculture, but it was designed to not need sunlight, instead relying on fancy LED's that the humans had made before the world flooded. 

Shale folded itself into a ball, like bats often did when they hung upside down, only it was using its tail to act like a bracelet around Dream’s wrist. To stop it from being knocked around, Dream put it in his pocket and adjusted it so that its eyes and ears peaked out over the fabric.

He made his way to the only elevator he recognised and stepped inside, standing between another Newtat and a human who were going lower than he was, but nevertheless he waited for the floor he wanted to appear.

Getting used to the strange human inventions had been a job for his parents, seeing as they got to witness this new frontier, along with most of the humans from the generation before, too. Many of the humans now were raised purely on the stories of before and how much better it was before everything happened, blaming the Newtats and the Aari and the Gilli instead of the politicians that didn't tell them about it happening, and instead of the natural phenomenon of a World Hole appearing. It just so happened a World Hole hadn't appeared in this world before, and somehow it was their fault for it and not the leviathan's. 

That was another problem, not suitable for elevator thoughts. Dream tended to reserve that one for when he couldn't sleep. 

Something about elevators made him think about things that were too big for him, Dream decided as the door opened, and he stepped out onto the fifth floor for the second day in a row. 

Although, days were hard to track underwater. Most who were not human tended to call them ‘cycles’ for the sake of taking out the confusion between day, as in twenty-four hours, and day, as in when the sun was in the sky. 

Humans were weird. They needed better languages. 

Dream retraced his footsteps from before, taking the first corner and evading someone carrying a slate and tapping the screen a bit too harshly, before he reached the two doors. There was the one George tended to be in for creature research, even if Dream didn't know its location until the day before, and the other for, supposedly, botany. 

Lab five was huge, hidden in compartments with air-locked doors to ensure safer working conditions for anyone running tests or otherwise adverse experiments, and Dream had no doubt that lab four was the same, only this time he didn't know anyone inside. 

Yet, with something akin to bravery if it was slightly dumber, Dream raised his hand and knocked on the door. If the humans didn't want him there then the second worst thing would be that they told him to go away. 

There was a pause. 

The door slid open, and the guy from the day before, now in a light blue áo dài-like shirt and the same black trousers, looked up at him from inside. 

“Hey,” Dream said.

Before the guy could open his mouth to ask what he wanted, Dream was already holding up the dark pink flower.

“I found this,” he said, “and the harbour master told me to bring it to the labs.”

The guy looked at the flower, then to Dream, and then back to Dream. 

He breathed in deeply and asked, "did you grow that?"

What a silly thing to ask.

"No," Dream said, but before he could continue the other man spoke again.

“Where did you find that?”

Dream resisted the urge to tilt his head to the side in confusion, but he still shifted from side to side on the plastic floor. 

“Outside.”

“Like, on the surface?”

“Yeah?”

“You’ve been to the surface?”

“Y-yeah?”

The guy looked at him, but he didn't reach forward to take the paper-like flower from his hands.

“That’s a bougainvillea,” he said.

Dream didn't know what that meant. 

“Okay mister scientist,” he said.

“I’m not a scientist.”

“Oh?”

“I’m just…” he paused, “I’m just a porter. I bring stuff up from the lower floors for this lab. You, uh, you pick things like science-y names up when you work here.”

Dream wasn't able to resist the urge to tilt his head to the side then, and the other guy smiled slightly, awkwardly. The human’s hair was still done up in the two buns of the day before, and his smile, endearingly, seemed crooked on his face. For a human he was quite pretty, although his height left a little to be desired. 

“Okay mister porter,” Dream said, “I don't know what to do with this flora now, so do you want it?”

“Me?”

He seemed surprised at Dream offering him the flower, even though he had seemed so interested in it before, and he had to resist the urge to roll his eyes at the human, even if it would have been with some kind of affection. Not a day went by where Dream didn't notice their little mannerisms and insistence on being polite, and even when Dream liked being polite too, they acted like it was unexpected rather than the social norm. Yes, his world had manners. No, they were not a human invention. 

“Do you want the bog-en-gilli-ah.”

“Uh,” he said, “sure. I’ll take it.”

Dream pushed his arm out in front of him so that the other man could take the flowers by the stem, and when he did so, their fingers brushed together slightly. 

“Sorry,” Dream said. 

“What for?”

“just. My fingers – never mind.”

There wasn't really an easy way for Dream to say something like, ‘sorry that I’m covered in slime’ so he just closed his mouth and looked off to the side. He wasn't sure why, but something about this human made him nervous. He wasn't acting like humans did, like everyone was a stranger and didn't deserve their time. Like most Newtats, Dream had been warned of their politeness being a front for adverse feelings, that remaining in their presence, even if they were being nice, sometimes meant they’d lash out later on. Humans, even with their expressive features, were able to lie with more than just words. 

But something about him seemed different. He was too expressive, too interested to hear about what Dream had to say, and too curious in something Dream thought was normal. Humans knew what land was, right? They knew what breaking the surface tension felt like and how the wind felt… right?

“I’ll uh, I’ll go,” Dream said as he turned around. 

“Wait,” he said, and he grabbed Dream’s sleeve. 

Shale peeked its head out from Dream’s pocket, and it stared at the dark-haired man as he withdrew his hand. He didn't seem to notice it watching him, but he quickly asked his next question.

“Sorry, wait. Uhm. What’s your name?”

“Dream,” he said, and then realised it was a prompt. He asked in return, “what’s yours?”

“Sapnap,” he said, twisting the stem of the flower, “thank you for this.”

“It’s just a flower,” Dream said, turning away again, “But it’s okay. I can get you more if you want.”

“I can't believe you’ve been to the surface.”

Dream stopped and looked at him, confused.

“So you’ve said. What’s so special about it?”

Sapnap stared at him, his big brown eyes seeming to waver as if he couldn't believe Dream was unable to process his implications. He was still holding the flower up to his chest. 

“Just,” he paused, “I’ve never been outside.”

Something in his voice seemed so small and unrecognisable to Dream, as if Sapnap was in awe at the idea of someone doing something different to him, but then again, he supposed that was the case. Humans hadn't been given enough time to adapt to aquatic life, and so Newtats like Dream who could swim and breathe air or water alike, or like the Aari who could walk the ocean depths comfortably, or even like George and the other Gilli who could fly just seemed so foreign. It had become abnormal, in the fifty or so years since the sea levels had risen, for humans to go outside. They lived under fluorescent lights and valued sciences above all things, and while most from Slle told them to value the arts as well, practicality differed the notion. 

“It’s…” Dream tried to put it nicely, “different.”

“I haven't seen it before, either. Like, at all."

“Not at all?” he raised an eyebrow, “like in pictures?”

“In  _ old  _ pictures, yeah, but…” he looked away, “it’s got to be different now, right? The ocean isn't exactly a stationary thing.”

Dream nodded.

“It’s a lot different, from what I’ve seen. Silt banks against buildings, sand inland, new kinds of plants from Slle, animals too, and there’s some reconstruction work where there was this big hill before, I think it was called Bukit Timah. They’re trying to turn it into a new base, but it’s currently very small.”

He seemed nervous, but his overwhelming curiosity overran the usual apprehension humans had.

“What colour is the sky?” he asked.

“Blue, usually.”

"Like… the same as before?"

"Most of the time."

“It changes?”

“When the sun rises and falls, yeah.”

“What’s it like when it’s dark?”

“It's dark.”

He watched as the lump in Sapnap’s throat bobbed in his throat, and he was more than aware of the thin skin on his own neck, moving gently with every heartbeat. Something about standing in the white-washed hallway, with the echoing sounds of the ocean outside moving against the bunker and the trickling from the canals made everything seem both pristine and oppressive. The bunker had saved humanity in Singapore, but what was left of it had yet to be shown kindness or salvation.

“Do…” Dream trailed off, “do you want me to bring you more things?”

Sapnap’s breath inwards was sharp, unintentional.

“Would you?”

“Yeah. It made no difference to me today, other than, well, meeting you properly this time.”

For a second, they just looked at one another. Dream’s hand flexed in his pocket, and Shale’s interested face ducked below the fabric of the one on his opposite side. A second later, Sapnap nodded, and the buns on his head moved with the motion.

“Please,” he said, a near whisper. 

Dream nodded back.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll bring you something.”

**Author's Note:**

> hey, author here posting this from a very unruly tablet.   
> My laptop charger has given up because God works in mysterious ways, and so the next update to this will be quite slow. I'm hoping to at least update this weekly, but with the estimated delivery time of EIGHT DAYS on the charger, it may be slightly later than I'd planned:(   
> If you want updates on how things are going on my end, the best place to look is my twitter.   
> Also, make sure to subscribe to this story if you want to be the first to know when there's a new update! 
> 
> Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think!
> 
> As always, please respect creators boundaries by not sending them this fic, and I will do the same in the event that they no longer want fanfiction or fan works. If it is ever declared incorrect to write shipping fics by the creators themselves this work will be deleted. Under no circumstance am I trying to insult or hurt anyone here.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr: @turtle-ier  
> Find me on Twitter: @Turtle_ier


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